Question: Is this normal to be listening to and repeating affirmations for a year and still not completely believe them?

Answer: It’s fairly normal for it to take some time to turn things around. It’s different with everybody. Some get involved with a group of people of like mind, or a great teacher, and are able to make a significant change quickly. That’s not very common, though.

Remember, you’ve been heading in one direction for most, if not all, your life, with a pattern of thinking. I liken it to sailing in a sailboat. You’re headed in one direction, and now want to go in the opposite direction. You can’t just flip the sails around or you’ll capsize. You have to move them incrementally. It takes time.

And your subconscious acts on the overall quality of your thoughts. If you’ve been thinking negatively for a long period, it takes a while, and a lot of belief, to change that. You can use affirmations to increase your belief, which might be the best thing to focus on for a while. That there is good in the world, you deserve it, and work on a smaller goal at first. As you succeed at that, you can proceed to larger goals.

Your emotional belief and trust in the Universe and your subconscious mind is what powers your affirmations. You/we all receive what we expect, in our deepest being, that we’re going to get. If we truly believe that nothing will change, no matter what affirmations we say, guess what? It doesn’t. The subconscious manifests the average of what we think about.

You’re learning a new skill, and like all new abilities, it takes time, perseverance and practice to get better at it.